THE UNIVERSITY DAILY-KANSAN
THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2013
HEALTH
PAGE 13A
Student raises recovery funds
EMMA LEGAULT
elegualt@kansan.com
The University now has a different meaning for Eleanor Cizek. For her, it's more than just a campus, classes and a home away from home. Today, it's a goal: a crucial step on the road to recovering from a traumatic brain injury.
On Jan. 9 during a ski trip in Colorado, Cizek, a sophomore from St. Paul, Minn., hit a padded pole and slipped into a week-long coma. After she awoke, she and her family began the process of supporting and advocating for her as she began an extensive rehabilitation journey to regain physical and cognitive stability.
Now, seven months later, Cizek is able to move and communicate, but her short-term memory and cognitive processes haven't caught up quite yet. And after her family learned their insurance had cut off and wouldn't cover the one-on-one, intensive therapy she needs, they sprang into action.
The Joy Recovery Project, which takes its name from Cizek's middle name, was started by her family to raise the approximately $250,000 to send Cizek to Quality Living, Inc. a rehab facility in Omaha, Neb. Cizek spent one month at QLI before the insurance coverage ran out.
Morethan 1,000 of Cizek's friends and family members gathered at a Joy Recovery Project fundraiser on Aug. 10 in Cizek's hometown to help her meet that goal. The event raised $252,805 for the next phase
of Cizek's care.
While QLI isn't the only institute that specializes in cognitive therapy, its individualized treatment plans make it the best, according to her siblings Zach and Jessa Cizek. There, Cizek will complete tasks, such as note-taking on an iPad and keeping track of personal finances, with the goal in mind that she will one day return to being completely independent.
"They help her to push her brain to the next level so she can get better and get back to where she was," Jessa said.
"I want to go back to how I was and go back to how I am, but I can't because of the injury."
The program at QLI is not only designed to fit Cizek's needs, but her interests as well. At home, Cizek loves spending time with her two dogs, Bear and Isaac, and getting a workout in on the treadmill at Anytime Fitness. At QLI, she'll be able to volunteer at the Humane Society and take trips to the YMCA to train for a half-marathon in November.
Ellie, now we're going to give it back and help others to get where she is and keep on going." Zach said.
ELEANOR CIZKE
Sophomore from St. Paul, Minn.
"We got our ducks in a row, now we're ready to rock and get her back here," Zach said.
Watching their sister take strides in recovery prompted the secondary purpose of the Joy Recovery Project: to raise awareness and support others going through the same process.
"We've been able to do a lot for
Although each case is different, the two years following a traumatic brain injury are a crucial recovery period for patients. Intensive, postacute rehab is required so recovery is maximized and the greatest possible amount of thinking, language, memory and emotional processes can be regained. Insurance companies aren't responsible to cover this phase, except in the state of Texas.
The youngest of four, Cizek would follow her siblings around and aspire to do everything like them as a child. She threw her family a
curveball when she decided the University of Kansas was where she wanted to go for college.
"Coming to Kansas was my place, it was my own experience," Cizek said. "Kansas was Ellie Cizek."
She became a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and found her family away from home. Jillian Pfaff, a junior from Overland Park, said she and her sorority sisters always talk about Cizek's bright blue eyes and her thick Minnesota accent.
"She always has to say 'bag' for us," Pfaid said.
The people she meets and spends time with are drawn to Cizek's warm, welcoming personality.
"At Kappa, we always have morning chats, and Ellie is the first one to get everyone in the hallway, like 'Come on! Get up!' Pfaff said. "She just likes being around everyone."
Cizek hopes to return to her home at the University as soon as she can. However, the journey of recovering from a TBI is strenuous and grueling, and while she has taken strides, it has taken a toll on Cizek.
"For me, it's taken too long," Cizek said. "There are big changes that I want to make, but it’s happening in small pieces. I want to be myself. I want to go back to how I was and go back to how I am, but I can’t because of the injury. I can’t be myself quite yet until I’ve recovered fully."
While the process has brought her family closer together, they're sympathetic to her frustration. Although it's unclear at this point whether Cizek will completely regain her cognitive skills, they hope she will progress at QLI and make the most of her recovery during this critical two-year period.
The one constant that Cizek and her support system have is their positive attitudes, especially Cizek's.
"I've never seen anything like it," Pfaff said. "I get mad at little things, and it makes me realize I don't have anything to worry about."
Jessa agreed.
"Every day she comes a little bit farther," Jessa said.
Edited by Madison Schultz
SYRIA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this citizen journalism photo provided by the Local Committee of Arbeen, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a man and woman mourn over the dead bodies of Syrian men after an alleged poisonous gas attack fired by regime forces, according to activists in Arbeen town, Damascus, Syria, Wednesday. Syrian regime forces fired intense artillery and rocket barrages Wednesday on the eastern suburbs of the capital Damascus, in what two pro-opposition groups claimed was a "poisonous gas" attack that killed dozens of people.
Syrian government denies gas attacks
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIRUT — The images showed lifeless children — wrapped in simple white cloths, their pale faces unmarked by any wound — lined up shoulder to shoulder in a vivid demonstration of an attack Wednesday in which activists say the Syrian regime killed at least 130 people with toxic gas.
The Syrian government adamantly denied using chemical weapons in an artillery barrage targeting suburbs east of Damascus, calling the allegations "absolutely baseless." The U.S., Britain and France demanded that a team of U.N. experts already in the country be granted immediate access to investigate the claims.
Videos and photographs showed row upon row of bodies wrapped in white shrouds lying on a tile floor, including more than a dozen children. There was little evidence of blood or conventional injuries and most appeared to have suffocated. Survivors of the purported attack, some twitching uncontrollably, lay on gurnees with oxygen masks covering their faces.
Activists and the opposition leadership gave widely varying
For months now, the rebels, along with the United States, Britain and France, have accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons in its campaign to try to snuff out the rebellion against President Bashar Assad that began in March 2011. The regime and its ally, Russia, have denied the allegations, blaming the rebels.
death tolls, ranging from as low as 136 to as high as 1,300. But even the most conservative tally would make it the deadliest alleged chemical attack in Syria's civil war.
The murky nature of the purported attacks, and the difficulty of gaining access to the sites amid the carnage of Syria's war, has made it impossible to verify the claims. After months of negotiations, a U.N. team finally arrived in Damascus on Sunday to begin its investigation into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria. But the probe is limited to three sites and only seeks to determine whether chemical agents were used, not who unleashed them.
The timing of Wednesday's attack — four days after the U.N. team's arrival — raised questions about why the regime would use chemical agents now.
Almost exactly one year ago, President Barack Obama called chemical weapons a "red line" for potential military action, and in June, the U.S. said it had conclusive evidence that Assad's regime had used chemical weapons against opposition forces.
The White House said the U.S. was "deeply concerned" by the reports, and spokesman Josh Earnest said the Obama administration had requested that the U.N. "urgently investigate this new allegation."
But the possibility of intervention seemed ever smaller after Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a letter this week that the administration is opposed to even limited action because it believes rebels fighting the Assad government wouldn't support American interests.
Russia decried Wednesday's reports as "alarmist." Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Luka
shevich denounced an "aggressive information campaign" laying full blame on the Syrian government as a provocation aimed at undermining efforts to convene peace talks between the two sides.
The regime began shelling the capital's eastern suburbs of Zamalka, Arbeen and Ein Tarma around 3 a.m. as part of a fierce government offensive in the area, which has a strong rebel presence, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
The heavy thud of artillery and rockets, as well as the grinding roar of fighter jets, could be heard by Damascus residents throughout the night and early Wednesday, and a pall of gray smoke hung over the towns.
Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman cited activists in the area who said "poisonous gas" was fired in rockets as well as from the air. He said that he had documented at least 136 deaths, but said it was not clear whether the victims died from shelling or toxic gas.
POLITICS
The Local Coordination Committees activist group said hundreds of people were killed or wounded.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this July 4, 2012 photo, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, right, takes a walk with his father, Vice President Joe Biden, to the Green Ridge Little Baseball Field in Scranton, Pa. Beau Biden is being evaluated at a cancer center in Texas, according to people with knowledge of his condition.
Beau Biden released from cancer center
DOVER, Del. — Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, the eldest son of Vice President Joe Biden, underwent a medical procedure at a Texas cancer center on Tuesday and will be returning soon to his home state, the vice president's office said Wednesday.
In a statement released by the White House, Vice President Biden and his wife Jill said Beau Biden underwent "a successful procedure," but they did not provide any details.
"He is in great shape and is going to be discharged tomorrow and heading home to Delaware," the statement read. "He will follow up with his local physicians in the coming weeks."
The White House declined to answer any questions about what procedure was performed, including whether it was diagnostic or therapeutic in nature.
Beau Biden, 44, was hospitalized last week after becoming weak and disoriented while on a family vacation in Indiana.
Biden was initially admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He traveled the next day to the Philadelphia hospital where he had been treated for a minor stroke in 2010 to consult with his doctor. He spent last weekend at home in Wilmington before going to Houston, where he was admitted to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center this week.
The Delaware Department of Justice released a statement saying the younger Biden had spoken Wednesday afternoon with his chief deputy and with the state prosecutor about several issues, including efforts to fight violent crime in Wilmington, and that he would speak with them again on Thursday after returning to Wilmington.
The vice president's office said Beau Biden will fly to Delaware on Air Force Two on Thursday as his father returns to Wilmington, Del.
It was not immediately clear when Beau Biden would return to work. Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Delaware Department of Justice, declined to elaborate beyond the written statement. Beau Biden was not available for comment.
A hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday afternoon that officials had no information beyond what was in the statement released by Joe Biden's office.
Authorities in Delaware,however, confirmed that emergency responders were called to the vice president's house,where Beau Biden has been living,two weeks ago.
A county dispatch center log indicates that on Aug. 1, someone at the vice president's home was reported to be possibly having a stroke and apparently not alert. Beau Biden has been staying at his father's Greenville home while his own house is renovated.
Rickie Clark, a staff supervisor with the Cranston Heights Fire Co., confirmed Wednesday that county dispatchers received a call for help from the vice president's home. However, he refused to provide further details.
The dispatch log on the fire department's website shows two references to the vice president's home on Aug. 1, one at 9:25 p.m. and another about a minute and a half later. Both cite "Cva-Not Alert," indicating that a person was in distress and apparently not alert or responsive to his or her surroundings. Clark said "Cva" is shorthand for cerebrovascular accident, or stroke.
The younger Biden has posted two photos of himself in recent days — one of him smiling with his father on Sunday, the other of him smiling with his wife, Hallie, on Tuesday.
"Touched by all your well wishes--thank you. Nice evening in Houston w/ Hallie; will share update when we have it," said the tweet accompanying the photo with his wife.
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